"But... but... I thought if Galurung died we wouldn't have to move and that's why we were doing it and and -" and now Bonesaw is sobbing, shaking and trying to hold herself as her silence from the walk back gives way to tears.

Beka puts down the bag and hugs her. "If we moved but we brought him with us, he'd be able to tell people where we moved to. If we moved and didn't bring him, however he found us the first time, he could do it again if his lordship said to. This way we only move once."

Bonesaw is sobbing too hard to put together a coherent reply, apparently.

Hug hug.

Don't want to have killed him. Don't want to move. Don't want things to go back to being like they were before I came here. Bonesaw makes public, since she can do that without neediing to use her mouth for things besides breathing.

Squeeze squeeze. We can fix up a new place just as nice as this one.

Squeeze.

Will you string up shells again? And paint the walls? 

Of course! And I'm better at painting now with all the practice, it can be even prettier.

That will be nice... I'll be quicker at setting up my lab too, and a new tree house since I've already done it once.... Oh but I can make it prettier too... Maybe make it bigger and have bits inside tree trunks and maybe do something with leaves that's pretty....

Ooh, you could have great big leaves be like curtains and tapestries...

Oh yeah I bet I could get leaves to do some really nice gradients and things and have them cast nice colors onto the walls when sunlight passes through them at dawn or something!

And maybe you could make them do flowers and fruits all the time? Really most of this place looks kind of weird with the sun and moon, we can do the new one with them in mind.

I can invent new fruits to grow!

Ooh, maybe some of them could taste like the cereal? Or fruits you know from Earth?

Yeah! And I can do other flavors you haven't had, like licorice and gummy worms and vanilla. 

That sounds great! Will you need a bunch of trees or one big one with different fruits on different branches?

Easiest way might involve different trees that get grafted together onto one once they're ready?

It can be so big and we can have branches with fruit on them reach right into the treehouse. Is Bonesaw unclinging enough to let Beka resume packing.

Sure - Bonesaw can pack as well.

"I guess we can set out on our own tonight and camp out somewhere? It might take me a couple of days to make us something faster than walking but I can do it while we travel."

"Yeah. We should cross water, in case smell matters, and try not to leave a trail of weird stuff or anything, and maybe zigzag a little so if we do leave something it doesn't lead in a straight line."

"I can dose us with the same chemical I used for our treehouse to mask the smell. Zigzag a bit might make sense but I think it's easier to do that once we have mounts and don't have to worry about how far away we are as much."

"How long will mounts take?"

"Hm, tommorow I can capture some deer so they follow us around for the day, the day after that they should be ready for riding? I can do it faster if we need to be far away sooner than that, but they wouldn't be as well made. They might break or need lots of repairing and I probably would find it harder to improve them later."

"...I don't really want to wait that long to get moving. Can we catch them on the go?"

"Oh yeah, that was my plan. Are we leaving tonight?"